Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Arlo Teague. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Arlo, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

I’m a tattooer. Tattooing is a largely unregulated industry, and my “apprenticeship” was not unique in that it was exploitative on a good day and HBO-original-drama-level jaw-dropping on a bad one. At the time of this story, I was working at a shop that wasn’t technically licensed yet under a person who openly mocked myself and the other apprentice for wearing masks. This was not even close to the worst apprenticeship I had had up to that point, and I desperately needed a clean, professional place to practice and build a clientele, so I tried to muddle through. I had struggled for a year to get a foothold in this industry, hoping to find a mentor I could build a long and mutually nourishing relationship with, and I was scared to let this position go. Conditions were growing increasingly hostile, though. Our mentor was trying (and failing) to pit myself and the other apprentice against one another, consistently complimenting one of us and putting the other down, and her attitude towards our mask-wearing was getting damn-near aggressive.

Tattooing was, I had decided by then, a vocation and a calling, not just a career, and I was willing to fight for it. I had been worn down by COVID lock-down and the toxic environments I was in, but I knew I was suited for nothing else. I was about ready to find a way to turn my garage into an underground private studio, mentor or no.

But the same nebulous boundaries that can make this industry so dark also leave a lot of room for us to forge our own paths and communities, and with social media we can connect with clients and one-another wether or not we have the support of a more established artist.

So around the same time I was going through this, there were a lot of us scrappy up-starts experimenting with style and supporting one another in any way we could. There was an artist across the bay from me, Ally, who had just graduated from their apprenticeship to be a full-fledged resident at their shop. I bought some art from them once- I still have it hanging above my desk at home– and sent them boba when they were having a bad day. Then a few months later they sent me all their apprentice supplies– cheap needles and ink that they would never use on a human but were perfect for practicing on fake skin and fruit. It was the first time I had physical evidence that someone in this industry was really looking out for me, and it buoyed me up. We stayed in touch, and I trusted them enough to share the experiences I was having at work.

Finally, I started posting real tattoos on real people on my instagram, and Ally reached out to schedule an appointment. They were maybe my sixth tattoo, and they talked me through the things I wasn’t confident about, or techniques that were new to me, as I did them. We spent six hours cracking each other up. Toward the end of the appointment, they let me know that I was welcome to be a guest-artist at their shop any time I wanted. I admitted that I was desperate to get out of where I was at. They said they would show the tattoo I had done for them to their boss, and see if maybe there was a permanent spot for me.

I interviewed the next week, quit my apprenticeship, and started my residency right alongside Ally at their shop. That was three years ago, and I’ve been there ever since. I’ve been through some hard personal life events in the intervening years, but no matter how hard things get, that shop is a safe harbor. No one there is afraid to ask a question about technique, no matter how much experience we have. We look out for each other, and our boss does not assess our value by how much we earn. I step over the threshold and feel that whatever storm is happening out there in the world gets softer, almost quiet.

I found out later that Ally had planned it all. They came and got a tattoo from me to see what I was like in person, and to prove to their boss (and now my boss, thank goodness) that my work was a good fit for the shop. They saw my potential and swooped me up out of a miserable place. I have a lot of good people in my life, but I’ve never had a near-stranger show so much faith in me that they got my artwork on their body just to secure my place as their colleague. This was a life-changing act for me, materially but also mentally. Suddenly, I was seeing myself through the eyes of someone I respected, and I found I wanted to live up to who they saw.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a tattooer. I work with a modern rotary pen machine or with hand-poke, and I make my own designs, either collaboratively with clients or on my own. My subject matter is primarily animals and creatures both real and imagined, interwoven with story/narrative elements like flowers and stars.

I didn’t always know my life would lead me here, but I knew for a lot longer than I was willing to admit to myself. I got a lot of tattoos while I went through art school, and while I was telling my professors and my parents and my partner I wanted to work in the entertainment industry, I was asking my tattoo artists if they would have apprenticeships available when I graduated, “just in case.”

My trade and my particular shop environment have given me the opportunity to be openly trans and neurodivergent in a way that has not been possible for me in any other work environment. My colleagues are similarly inclined, and the result is that our client base trends that way as well. I can’t exactly say that I am proud of this, as it seems to be the natural result of how we communicate and present ourselves. I am, however, eternally grateful to my shop community and the shop-owner for nourishing our wholesome strangeness, and I am proud that we are who we are.

What I most want prospective clients to know about how I think of tattooing is this:

Tattooing is a sacred practice, from the playful impulsive tattoos to the carefully planned multi-session full-sleeves. People who get tattoos are seeking a transformation for one reason or another. At different times in my own life, getting tattooed has been a chance to take back power over my body after a traumatic event, a gender-affirming act, a way to commemorate a moment in time, and a physical means of process grief, among other things. I am a little different after each experience, whether I spent it in silence or goofing off with my artist– I know something new about how my body responds to pain, or about how I respond to change. It is a fundamentally vulnerable act that connects me directly to another human-being, either my artist or my client, depending on which chair I’m sitting in.

Having a trauma-informed approach to tattooing (and any kind of body-work) is important to me, but I’m reticent to say that this describes what I do as I don’t think behaving in a trauma-informed way is a static state so much as a constant process. I do my best to make sure my clients know what will happen to their body every step of the way, and that clients have the ability to change their minds about design and placement.

I am still so new to this industry; within the long history of tattooing itself, I am and will always be barely a blip. I feel incredibly fortunate to get to participate in this old and deeply human practice for as long as my body will allow me.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Tattooing was my pivot.

I finished undergrad with degrees in Fine Art and Language studies, studied abroad in Japan, graduated, remained adrift and uncertain for a couple years, and then I went back for art school with a major in illustration. I dug myself deep into private debt to fund this, very much believing that if I got the degree and survived the all-nighters, I would automatically be a capable commercial artist. I didn’t understand that what I was paying for most of all was access to structure and community.

After graduation, I tried to freelance for Disney Publishing and found that I simply could not. I would sit in front of my screen for hours, getting distracted by anything and everything and making no progress. I was being paid by the page, so essentially I was hemorrhaging money. By the end of the day, I was often barely closer to finishing a project than at the start. The only difference was that I was covered in a cold sweat and weighed down by a profound feeling of worthlessness.

I tried to work on my own portfolio, but without the benefit of the in-depth, three-hour long critiques I had every week in school, I ran into the same problem. It didn’t matter if money was on the table, it didn’t matter if loans were due. It wasn’t that I would not draw; I could not. I started to panic. I already knew from past experience that I couldn’t handle the rigidity of an office job, but I didn’t know what on earth I was going to do instead.

It was around that time that I finally got an ADHD diagnosis. I was twenty-eight. It made a lot of my life make sense all at once. I read a lot about ADHD and motivation at that time, and slowed down long enough to think about the times in my life where making art didn’t feel forced. I found that I made my best work when there were folks around me who were invested in my work, and when the work I was doing felt personal and meaningful.

So finally, I turned and faced the Elephant in the Room.

I had friends begging me to start tattooing, but I was so afraid of disappointing my family and my partner, who helped me with rent in school, that I was afraid to consider it. Would they think I was giving up? But I was past the luxury of worrying about that. I found an apprenticeship, and a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.

The apprenticeship was awful, but the medium and the workflow were exactly what I needed:

1. There are no arbitrary deadlines in tattooing– if the artwork isn’t ready, I can’t tattoo it.

2. A tattoo shop with good people in it is an automatic community, and if you like each other and admire one another’s work, you can offer each other a great deal of healthy critique and encouragement.

3. Tattooing never feels empty or hollow. It is a permanent transformation that is important to my client in a way that a background painting for a book version of a Disney movie never will be important to a supervisor. So my work always feels meaningful.

So that was it. I had to pivot if I wanted to keep doing art for a living, and frankly I don’t think I’m built for much else. Tattooing and I found each other and I embrace the challenges and adventure the medium offers me for as long as my body allows.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think about resilience a lot these days.

I got COVID for the first time in July of 2021, and my life changed drastically. For one thing, my heart would sometimes race for no reason at all and I couldn’t even stand for long periods. For another, I suddenly struggled to string complete sentences together. I would forget what I was about to say right in the middle of saying it, or wander around the house trying to remember what I had been about to do. I was tired all the time. I still am.

At work, I would ask for help learning a new skill or technique. My co workers would come over to teach me something, but when they walked away it was almost like they had never been there. I found myself taking breaks during a tattoo every thirty minutes, and the quality of my work dropped. Lines were healing too light, and people were constantly coming back for touch-ups. I didn’t know myself anymore. My brain and my body felt totally unfamiliar and out of my control.

I can’t think about resilience now without thinking about disability, and community, and safety nets.

Who gets to be resilient, and why? What support did they have that was made invisible when they succeeded?
The narrative that sheer grit or some innate, super-human willpower are the secret qualities all successful artists possess has never served me. I think it works for some people, but over and over again my brain has humbled me in one way or another.

Without my partner, or my parents, or the understanding and patience of my boss and colleagues at my shop, I do not know where I would be. A lot of people have become homeless since COVID, because long covid has disabled a lot of people, and maybe a lot of those people just did not have the support they needed to come through it.

I’m still not as sharp as I was before I got sick. I’ve had to adjust my tattoo style and treat myself like a much less experienced artist, re-learning basic skills. I didn’t quit, and I suppose I do have a spark of determination when I put my mind to something. But I’ve had a lot of grace and help getting back in the saddle.

I don’t think this answers the question, really. But it feels important. I hope anyone running their own business, especially any artist, who happens to be reading this understands that there is no shame in accepting help, and compromising productivity to look after yourself or a member of your team.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://arloink.carrd.co/
• Instagram: @arlo.ink